“I didn’t.But I read about him.He was a real hero.”
They might actually be onto something with him.Faith crossed her arms and said, “If you don’t mind me saying so, James, you sound a bit jealous of Paul.”
James met her eyes.“Of course I was.Like your partner said, I fought just as hard.I put my all into my job.When my platoon was ambushed, I fought so hard that when they found me, my hand had frozen shut around my rifle.They had to inject me with epinephrine to get my hand to relax enough to drop the gun.But”—he lifted his hands, palm upright—“I failed.They all died.All except me.You can’t convince people that you’re a hero when you survive, and your men end up in body bags.”
“People do a lot of crazy things when they’re jealous,” Michael said.“Including murder other people.”
James scoffed, and the sneer came back to his voice.“You think I killed a stranger because he was a better soldier than I was?Buddy, you can throw a rock into an Army base, and the grunt it hits in the head is going to wake up from brain surgery a better soldier than I was.If I wanted to kill a soldier, it could have been anyone.”
“Why do you say you were a bad soldier?”
His lower lip trembled.“Why is that relevant?I’m just saying that being jealous of someone’s success on the battlefield isn’t a reason I would kill them.”
“Do you have a reason to kill someone?”Michael asked.
James sighed.“Look, I’ve been an archaeologist for over a decade now.I’m well-respected in my field.I’ve authored numerous peer-reviewed articles on the Iroquois Confederacy, the Delaware Nation, the First Nations, and even the Plains Indians.”
“Not as respected as Anna Winters, though, huh?”Michael pointed out.“She got picked to lead the dig site at the river.Meanwhile, you’re here cataloguing wooden animals.How did that make you feel?”
James’s eyes narrowed.“You think I killed Paul Martinez because I was pissed at Dr.Naymar for putting Dr.Winters in charge of the excavation?”
“Dr.Naymar is…”
“The head of the Archaeology Department.”
Faith folded her arms.“We’re not accusing you of anything, Dr.Furlong.”
“It sure seems like you are.You asked me if I killed him, and each time I say no, you try to think of a reason why I must be lying.”
“We just want to know why someone would have killed him,” Faith said.“After all, he was—according to you and everyone else we’ve talked to—a likable guy.So who wanted him dead?”
“And I hate to say it,” Michael added, “but you had a reason.Not a good reason, but people have killed for less.I’m not accusing you, but I’m interested in your thoughts.”
To her surprise, James chuckled.“You want to know my thoughts?I’m a loser.Those are my thoughts.I’m upset that Anna got the job instead of me, but I’m not surprised.I was a shit soldier, and I’m a shit archaeologist.”
“Less than a minute ago, you said you were respected in your field,” Michael pointed out.
“Little hint.When academics say that, what they mean is that they’ve been published enough to keep their jobs and no one’s accused them of embezzlement or an inappropriate relationship with a student yet.”
“You keep saying you were a shit soldier,” Michael pressed.“Why?”
James reddened and rose from his seat.“Why?I’ll tell you why.Forty-seven Americans are fuckingdeadbecause of me!”
The room fell silent.Even Turk seemed stunned by the outburst.James looked equally stunned, his eyes opened wide and his face somehow pale and flushed at the same time.
James sank slowly back into his seat and lifted a shaking hand to his head.“I didn’t mind that Paul got top honors in theDaily.I’m pretty pissed off that Anna got the dig ahead of me, but I know I was wrong to say it was because of her tits.As far as jealousy?I guess you could call it that.I would very much love to be known as someone other than the lieutenant who fucked up and got a lot of families folded flags instead of safely returned loved ones.”
His lips trembled, and his shoulders slumped.Faith felt a touch of sympathy.Even though he was a murder suspect, he was clearly broken up about what had happened to his unit.
James took a deep breath and met Faith’s eyes.“I would never kill someone like Paul, though.If I was going to kill someone, it’d be me.He deserved to live.I don’t.I know I’m not supposed to say stuff like that, but it’s the truth.I wasn’t cut out for the job.I knew it, and I still did it anyway.”
“I’m sorry for what happened,” Michael said.“It sounds like it was very traumatic.”
Faith looked at Michael and saw indecision in his eyes.She didn’t feel very decisive herself.James wasn’t acting like the kind of person who would sneak up behind Paul Martinez, stab him, take him up to a specific site, dig a shallow grave, bury him, and then leave.
It wasn’t just that his remorse and self-hate appeared genuine.His emotions were all over the place.Aggressive and irritable at one moment, remorseful and dejected the next, and above all, impatient.Paul had been killed by someone who had meticulously planned every step of the murder and the burial.Faith could picture James bludgeoning Paul to death in the heat of the moment, but executing a well-thought-out crime like this murder seemed beyond him.
She looked at Turk.He watched James warily, but it was hard to tell if that was because he suspected something or because he could tell James was unstable and wanted to jump in and intervene at a moment’s notice.He didn’t act nearly as excited as he would if he recognized James’s smell from the crime scene.
